Retro Gaming Australia

In further celebration of Street Fighter‘s 25th anniversary, Capcom have shared the 72 minute long documentary ‘I Am Street Fighter: 25 Years Of Inspiration’ on YouTube. Originally included in the Street Fighter 25th Anniversary Collector’s Set, the documentary is now available for all to see for free.

Created by production studio AREA 5, the documentary takes a look at the creation and history of the Street Fighter series and its fans. You can watch the entire documentary above.

Source: Siliconera

Capcom will be releasing a 2-disc, 40 track soundtrack set in celebration of the company’s 30th anniversary on September 25th.

Entitled Capcom 30th Anniversary Music Best: Original & Arrange, the CD contains tracks from popular Capcom classic franchises such as Ghosts’n Goblins, Mega Man and Street Fighter, as well as modern hits Sengoku Basara, Monster Hunter and Dragon’s Dogma.

So far the CD is only planned for release in Japan, but you can easily obtain it from AmiAmi for the RRP of 3150 yen.

Via Siliconera

This week Namco Bandai announced Soul Calibur II HD Online for both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The games release is part of Soul Calibur II’s 10-year anniversary celebration.

Soul Calibur II HD Online will feature high-definition visuals and online multiplayer via PSN and Xbox Live, and includes all the original release’s game modes. Both the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions shall include the guest from the original PS2 version, Tekken‘s Heihachi, as a playable character once again. There is no word on whether Spawn from the original Xbox version of Soul Calibur II will also make an appearance, and the chances of The Legend of Zelda’s Link who appeared in the GameCube version is well… zip?

Soul Calibur II HD Online is set for a digital release later this year. Check out the trailer below.

After a couple of days of Kojima’s Twitter teasing, Konami has officially announced Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection.

The Legacy Collection is a package containing the main Metal Gear canon: Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid: Integral, Metal Gear Solid: HD Edition (Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance HD and Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence HD), Metal Gear Solid 4: Trophy Edition and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD, along with a hundred page book on the series history and the Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2 digital graphic novels. The two MSX games will be based on the Subsistence updated versions, while Metal Gear Solid: Integral will be provided as a download code for redemption on PSN.

The release is only planned for Japan at this stage, where it will hit stores on July 11 at a cost of 7890 yen.

Capcom has announced that they have approved the release of a fan made Mega Man and Street Fighter crossover game in celebration of each series’ 25th anniversary. The game will be released on December 17, drawing the Street Fighter 25th Anniversary celebrations to a close, and kicking off the Mega Man series 25th Anniversary celebrations. Yes, Capcom has actually decided to do something for Mega Man’s anniversary.

As you can see from the trailer, the game essentially plays like your bog standard Mega Man game, but replaces the usual robot masters with eight of the finest fighters from the Street Fighter series.

Capcom’s Christian Svensson says they have more planned for the Mega Man anniversary, and that celebrations will take place over the course of the next year. On a post on Capcom Unity, he stated “I don’t know that there’s more substantial [things] for me to talk about but there’s a TON more things we have in the works, only some of which will be shared on December 17th.”

At this stage, the only other known Mega Man anniversary plans are the Virtual Console releases of Mega Man and Mega Man 2 for the 3DS in Europe in Q1 2013. Get to it, Capcom!

To commemorate Grand Theft Auto: Vice City’s 10th anniversary, Rockstar will soon be re-releasing the game for select iOS and Android devices. The Anniversary Edition of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City will feature improved graphics, a touch interface and other such enhancements.

Further celebrations for the occasion include the release of previously unseen artwork and new anniversary trailer showcasing iconic moments and music from the game, a limited run of collectable items purchasable through Rockstar Warehouse, and online giveaways.

If you are quick, you can also snap up Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on iOS and Android for 99 cents.

Note: Grand Theft Auto 3: Australian Edition for iOS is still priced at $5.49.

Square-Enix revealed today that they would be releasing a compilation of Final Fantasy games in celebration of the series’ 25th anniversary this December.

Dubbed the Final Fantasy Ultimate Box, the set, which costs a princely 35,000 yen (about $AU440), contains every mainline Final Fantasy release to date. This is a PlayStation centric set, so you won’t be seeing Super Famicom cartridge releases.

The game breakdown is
– Final Fantasy (PlayStation)
– Final Fantasy II (PlayStation)
– Final Fantasy III (PSP)
– Final Fantasy IV (PlayStation)
– Final Fantasy V (PlayStation)
– Final Fantasy VI (PlayStation)
– Final Fantasy VII: International (PlayStation)
– Final Fantasy VIII (PlayStation)
– Final Fantasy IX (PlayStation)
– Final Fantasy X (PlayStation 2)
– Final Fantasy XI (PlayStation 2)
– Final Fantasy XII (PlayStation 2)
– Final Fantasy XIII (PlayStation 3)

We’re told that the set also includes the art book FF25 Crystal Art Works, the FF25 soundtrack, art cards and more. Each of the 13 games will have new disc art drawn by Yoshitaka Amano. The set is due to release on December 18, 2012.

The Street Fighter 25th Anniversary Collector’s Set is already chock full of goodies, but PlayStation 3 owners are now in for even more content. At San Diego Comic-Con, Capcom announced that the PS3 version of the set will include exclusive additional digital content.

In addition to all the content already announced, the PS3 version will come with download codes for Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors’ Dreams, Street Fighter Alpha 2 and Street Fighter Alpha 3 as PSOne Classics, Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max for PSP, and the Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition DLC. You will apparently also receive 175 PSN avatars – that’s a lot of avatars!

The Street Fighter 25th Anniversary Collector’s Set is available for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on September 18 in North America for US$149.99 (you can preorder it on Amazon now). I wonder if the Xbox 360 version will get anything to compensate.

Source: Siliconera

On the 7th of July, 1987, Metal Gear for the MSX2 was released in Japan. The game wasn’t actually all that successful until Konami ported it to the NES and released it in North America later that year, where it went on to sell a million units.

Metal Gear was originally a straight up shooter until Hideo Kojima was assigned to the project to sort out development difficulties. Inspired by The Great Escape, he decided to abandon the game’s focus on action and emphasise stealth.

Konami decided to make a NES sequel, Snake’s Revenge, without Kojima’s involvement. Kojima was allegedly persuaded into making the sequel, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake by a co-worker who was on the Snake’s Revenge project, who wanted a true Metal Gear sequel.

Neither game did especially well, leaving the series dormant for 6 years until the release of Metal Gear Solid, which turned the series into the powerhouse franchise it is today.

Konami does not appear to have planned any special releases or events for the actual date of the anniversary, though we’ve seen a series of Uniqlo t-shirts and Play Arts Kai figures released over the past 6 months. The next Metal Gear game, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, is due out in early 2013.

One of the most important companies in the history of video games, Atari, was incorporated 40 years ago today. Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney’s original business, Syzygy Engineering, was started about a year earlier, but never formally incorporated.

Of course, the Atari corporate entity that exists today and the original company are quite different. Atari as we know it today is actually French video game developer and publisher Infogrames Entertainment SA. The original Atari Corporation was bought at the height of its success by Warner Communications. After the video game crash in North America, Warner split the company into three; Atari Corporation, the home computer and console games division, which was sold to Tramiel Technologies, Atari Games, the arcade game division, which was sold to Namco in 1985, and Ataritel, which dealt with phones was sold to Mitsibushi.

The Tramiels sold their stake in Atari, leaving the company to merge with a hard drive manufacturer JTS to form JTS Corp in 1996. The marriage was short-lived, with JTS selling the Atari name and assets to Hasbro Interactive in 1998. Hasbro sought to free itself of Hasbro Interactive in 2001, selling the division to Infogrames, which subsequently rebranded its North American division as Atari, Inc. It also made Atari Interactive, the division it bought from Hasbro a separate entity.

After years of losses, Inforgrames SA bought out all existing shares in its listed American entity Atari, Inc. and then rebranded itself as Atari SA.

Atari Games, on the other hand, only stayed with Namco for a year. A group of employees decided to buy the company out, and operated it until 1993 when Time Warner , which technically originally owned the company, bought it from the group. Time Warner held onto the company for three years before selling it onto WMS Industries, better known as Midway Games. It was renamed Midway Games West when Hasbro began using the Atari name for home console software again. The division stopped producing arcade games in 2001, and was disbanded in 2003. The holding company for all of these assets still existed as late as 2009, and amusingly, found its way under the Warner umbrella again when Warner Bros. Entertainment bought the remnants of Midway.

That ought to do it for today’s lesson in corporate history.